Rich Hill on Xander Bogaerts: ‘He should be a Red Sox for life’
If you believe the reporting from Marino Pepén, the Red Sox are up to something and it potentially could have something to do with Xander Bogaerts.
Pepén who covers the team on social media has been teasing, “a bomb is coming” on Twitter. Whatever he’s teasing has fans speculating it has to do with either a new contract for Bogaerts or even an extension for Rafael Devers.
Until the news is announced, others including teammate Rich Hill has been lobbying for the Red Sox to make Bogaerts a Red Sox player for life.
Hill joined WEEI’s Rob Bradford on “The Bradfo Sho,” where he said the 30-year-old “should be a Red Sox for life.”
“He’s probably one of the best teammates I’ve ever played with,” Hill told Bradford. “And I think that the value in that alone. … In my opinion, yes. He should be a Red Sox for life.
“And it is something that — the movement in the game that has happened so frequently. Kids become connected to a player, and now I’m just speaking as far as like the health of the game and the growing of the game. And then all of a sudden, I’m a big Xander Bogaerts fan as a kid, and all of a sudden he gets traded or he signs somewhere else as a free agent. Now you lose that kind of connection to the team and to the player.”
Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom stated earlier this offseason that Bogaerts was the clubs top priority.
“I don’t ever want to make public any of the blow by blow, but what I can say is this: That process is going to start right away from our end,” Bloom said. “Obviously, we know we haven’t found that path yet. We still want to. We’re going to work really hard at it.”
Bogaerts is technically still under contract with the club. The Aruba native needs to decide whether or not he will opt-out of his contract which is likely to happen.
The All-Star shortstop is in line for a significant raise from his current $20 million per year salary. Teams will be lining up to have a crack at signing Bogaerts, including the Phillies who have been reported to have interest.
Bloom’s priority is to get a deal done with Bogaerts before he can opt-out in a few weeks.
“That’s no different than where we’ve been,” Bloom said. “Our position hasn’t changed on that. I’ve said this before, but nothing I say really matters unless there’s a deal. But our position has been the same, that we want to keep him here for a long time and we want him here on a deal that we’re going to look back on and say, ‘This was great for everybody.’”
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